METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ENABLING A SIDESHOW DEVICE TO SUPPORT ENHANCED FEATURES
A method and system for enabling an auxiliary system, such as a SideShow device, to support enhanced features is provided. Specifically, one embodiment of the present invention sets forth a method, which includes the steps of emulating a physical communication channel to establish a virtual communication channel, encapsulating data associated with a first function defined by a first Application Programming Interface (API) and utilized to implement an enhanced feature, and sending the encapsulated data through the virtual communication channel for an embedded operation system (OS) to manage hardware resources of the auxiliary system to perform the enhanced feature.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to Windows SideShow technology, and more particularly, to a method and system for enabling a SideShow device to support enhanced features.
2. Description of the Related Art
Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
With Windows Vista operating systems becoming the dominant operating systems for personal computers, a variety of software or hardware applications compatible with Vista-based computer systems are also becoming more and more popular. One of the Vista-based software/hardware applications is Windows SideShow, which is a technology that supports an auxiliary screen to the Vista-based computer system.
Since Windows SideShow technology is initially designed to only support an auxiliary screen to display some primitive system information, a conventional SideShow device is limited in its functionality and typically supports a minimal set of hardware resources. Without much hardware resources to manage, the conventional SideShow device is configured with a relatively basic and non-expandable software stack. To illustrate,
The built-in gadget 102 is equipped with simple functions such as “Open Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART) and “Send UART” provided by the SideShow API 104. Functions provided by the SideShow API 104 are written in languages such as C# or VB.NET and are recognized by the tiny CLR 106. Continuing with the “Open UART” and “Send UART” examples, it should first noted that “Open UART” is basically configured to open a physical UART port supported by the hardware resources 108, and “Send UART” is configured to have data delivered to the opened physical UART port. In other words, the built-in gadget 102 in the software stack 100 can access the hardware resources 108 by opening a physical UART port and transferring data through the UART port. However, both “Open UART” and “Send UART” functions are supported by the SideShow API 104 and recognized by the tiny CLR 106. Since the SideShow API 104 and the tiny CLR 106 are designed to only support a limited set of functions and interact with a minimal set of hardware resources, it is difficult to enhance the functionalities or the hardware resources of the conventional SideShow device given the inherent restrictions imposed by the software stack 100.
What is needed in the art is thus a method and system that enable a SideShow device to support enhanced features and access additional hardware resources to address at least the problems set forth above.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONA method and system for enabling an auxiliary system, such as a SideShow device, to support enhanced features is provided. Specifically, one embodiment of the present invention sets forth a method, which includes the steps of emulating a physical communication channel to establish a virtual communication channel, encapsulating data associated with a first function defined by a first Application Programming Interface (API) and utilized to implement an enhanced feature, and sending the encapsulated data through the virtual communication channel for an embedded operation system (OS) to manage hardware resources of the auxiliary system to perform the enhanced feature.
At least one advantage of the present invention disclosed herein is to enable a SideShow device to support more advanced features than simply displaying primitive images.
So that the manner in which the above recited features of the present invention can be understood in detail, a more particular description of the invention, briefly summarized above, may be had by reference to embodiments, some of which are illustrated in the drawings. It is to be noted, however, that the drawings illustrate only typical embodiments of this invention and are therefore not to be considered limiting of its scope, for the invention may admit to other equally effective embodiments.
Throughout this description, a computer system may include a main system and an auxiliary system. The main system typically is configured with a feature-rich operating system, such as Windows Vista, and much computing resources, such as central processing units (CPUs) and memory systems. The auxiliary system, on the other hand, is typically configured with embedded software programs and limited hardware resources. A “primary display” broadly refers to the display mainly driven by the main system, and an “auxiliary display” broadly refers to the display that can be driven by either the main system or the auxiliary system. Here, an example of the main system is a laptop computer, and an example of the auxiliary system is a SideShow device coupled to the laptop computer.
In one implementation, the virtual UART port 212 is a software construct emulating the same attributes of a physical UART port, such as the physical UART port 216. Once instantiated, the virtual UART port 212 is utilized to facilitate communications between different software components that operate on the SideShow device 200. To further illustrate, suppose the SideShow device 200 includes speakers in the hardware resources 208. For the built-in gadget 214 to access the speakers and cause it to play back certain music, the virtual UART port 212 is instantiated and utilized so that the built-in gadget 214 can properly communicate with the embedded OS 210.
To illustrate how the SideShow device 200 of
In conjunction with
In one implementation, for the functions supported by the tiny media API 256 and also invoked to carry out the enhanced feature, before any data associated with such functions is delivered through the virtual UART 212, the data first goes through an encapsulation process, which involves packetizing and encoding, and an extraction process, which involves decoding. Again in conjunction with
With the data associated with the selected feature of playing back music in a packet, in step 406, the packet is sent to the embedded OS 460 as the pseudo function call “Send UART” is invoked. In one implementation, this “Send UART” function is supported by the SideShow API 254. If this function is invoked with a destination port number that is specifically associated with the virtual UART port 212, then the packet is delivered through the virtual UART port. In step 408, the embedded OS 260 receives the packet by intercepting it from the virtual UART port 212 and decodes the packet by invoking the “decode packet” pseudo function to extract the information residing in the packet. The embedded OS 260 executes the command extracted from the header field 452 of
It is worth noting that for the functions provided by the tiny media API 256, which are mainly used to implement one or more enhanced features for the SideShow device 200, the data associated with these newly-supported functions are sent to the embedded OS 260 through a virtual communication port. In addition, the embedded OS 260 enables the SideShow device 200 greater flexibilities to access and manage the hardware resources 262. As also mentioned above, by assigning port numbers that differ from the physical communication ports supported by the hardware 262 to correspond to the virtual communication ports, the embedded OS 260 can use the port numbers to determine where to direct the received packet.
Instead of sending data or command from the built-in gadget 252 of
As has been demonstrated, the SideShow device according to one embodiment of the present invention is capable of supporting enhanced features. Such a SideShow device is configured with an enhanced API, an embedded OS, and virtual communication channels. By transferring data or commands via the virtual communication channels, the SideShow device not only maintains its compatibility with the existing SideShow technology, but it also is able to support enhanced features and additional hardware resources.
While the forgoing is directed to embodiments of the present invention, other and further embodiments of the invention may be devised without departing from the basic scope thereof. For example, aspects of the present invention may be implemented in hardware or software or in a combination of hardware and software. One embodiment of the invention may be implemented as a program product for use with a computer system. The program(s) of the program product define functions of the embodiments (including the methods described herein) and can be contained on a variety of computer-readable storage media. Illustrative computer-readable storage media include, but are not limited to: (i) non-writable storage media (e.g., read-only memory devices within a computer such as CD-ROM disks readable by a CD-ROM drive, ROM chips, or any type of solid-state non-volatile semiconductor memory) on which information is permanently stored; and (ii) writable storage media (e.g., floppy disks within a diskette drive or hard-disk drive or any type of solid-state random-access semiconductor memory) on which alterable information is stored. Such computer-readable storage media, when carrying computer-readable instructions that direct the functions of the present invention, are embodiments of the present invention. Therefore, the above examples, embodiments, and drawings should not be deemed to be the only embodiments, and are presented to illustrate the flexibility and advantages of the present invention as defined by the following claims.
Claims
1. A method for enabling an auxiliary system that drives an auxiliary display to support enhanced features, the method comprises:
- emulating a physical communication channel to establish a virtual communication channel;
- encapsulating data associated with a first function defined by a first Application Programming Interface (API) and utilized to implement an enhanced feature; and
- sending the encapsulated data through the virtual communication channel for an embedded operation system (OS) to manage hardware resources of the auxiliary system to perform the enhanced feature.
2. The method of claim 1, further comprising opening the virtual communication channel before sending the encapsulated data.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the sending step further comprising invoking a second function supported by a SideShow API with a port number corresponding to the virtual communication channel.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein the first API supplements the SideShow API.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the encapsulating step further comprising placing the data in a packet and encoding the packet.
6. The method of claim 5, further comprising decoding the packet and extracting the data from the packet after the embedded OS receives the packet.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein the embedded OS abstracts the hardware resources of the auxiliary system from another software component configured to operate in the auxiliary system.
8. An auxiliary system configured to drive an auxiliary display and support enhanced features, the auxiliary system comprises:
- a processing unit;
- hardware resources; and
- a memory unit, wherein the memory unit contains a sequence of instructions, which when executed by the processing unit, causes the processing unit to: establish a virtual communication channel that emulates a physical communication channel supported by the hardware resources; encapsulate data associated with a first function defined by a first Application Programming Interface (API) and utilized to implement an enhanced feature; and send the encapsulated data through the virtual communication channel to an embedded operating system (OS) so that the hardware resources are managed to perform the enhanced feature.
9. The auxiliary system of claim 8, wherein the processing unit is further configured to open the virtual communication channel before sending the encapsulated data.
10. The auxiliary system of claim 8, wherein the processing unit is further configured to invoke a second function supported by a SideShow API with a port number corresponding to the virtual communication channel.
11. The auxiliary system of claim 10, wherein the first API supplements the SideShow API.
12. The auxiliary system of claim 8, wherein the processing unit is further configured to place the data in a packet and encode the packet before sending the packet through the virtual communication channel.
13. The auxiliary system of claim 12, wherein the processing unit is further configured to decode the packet and extract the data from the packet after the embedded OS receives the packet.
14. The auxiliary system of claim 8, wherein the embedded OS abstracts the hardware resources from another software component configured to operate in the auxiliary system.
15. A computer-readable medium containing a sequence of instructions for a software stack, which when executed by a processing unit in an auxiliary system configured to drive an auxiliary display and support enhanced features, causes the processing unit to:
- establish a virtual communication channel that emulates a physical communication channel supported by hardware resources of the auxiliary system;
- encapsulate data associated with a first function defined by a first Application Programming Interface (API) in the software stack and utilized to implement an enhanced feature; and
- send the encapsulated data through the virtual communication channel to an embedded operating system (OS) in the software stack so that the hardware resources are managed to perform the enhanced feature.
16. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, further containing a sequence of instructions for the software stack, which when executed by the processing unit, causes the processing unit to open the virtual communication channel before sending the encapsulated data.
17. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, further containing a sequence of instructions for the software stack, which when executed by the processing unit, causes the processing unit to invoke a second function supported by a SideShow API in the software stack with a port number corresponding to the virtual communication channel.
18. The computer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the first API supplements the SideShow API.
19. The computer-readable medium of claim 15, further containing a sequence of instructions for the software stack, which when executed by the processing unit, causes the processing unit to place the data in a packet and encode the packet before sending the packet through the virtual communication channel.
20. The computer-readable medium of claim 19, further containing a sequence of instructions for the software stack, which when executed by the processing unit, causes the processing unit to decode the packet and extract the data from the packet after the embedded OS receives the packet.
Type: Application
Filed: Dec 27, 2007
Publication Date: Jul 2, 2009
Patent Grant number: 8069449
Inventors: Yu-Fong CHO (Linkou Shiang), Chong-Li Liu (Sanchong City), Ming-Lung Chiu (Gueishan Township)
Application Number: 11/965,000
International Classification: G06F 3/00 (20060101);